


him whose howling drives men mad

by Sinna



Series: It's Tough To Be A God [3]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, a creation myth for Gunpowder Tim, god AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27000883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinna/pseuds/Sinna
Summary: It's never easy to bring a Monster back from the brink.But Jonny isn't one to give up when the going gets rough.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Gunpowder Tim
Series: It's Tough To Be A God [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959880
Comments: 8
Kudos: 94





	him whose howling drives men mad

There’s a Monster on the battlefield.

No one’s gotten close enough to know any more than rumors. No one who’s survived anyway. 

The Monster sticks to enemy territory, mostly. But if it happens to stumble into a mixed battlefield, it won’t discriminate based on uniform. It kills all with the same mindless fury. Still, the stupider among the men have begun to think of it as an ally. To speculate on where the Monster might strike next. To hope that it might take out their enemy before it reaches them. It’s a dangerous wish, to want a Monster close to you, to think you can control its fury.

Jonny’s eyes are better than most. He recognizes that long bloodstained coat. He can look past the claws and horns, past the horrible face that’s more teeth than anything has a right to be, past the madness swirling in those eyes, to recognize the spark of what used to be a man. 

Not that he needs to. He was there when the Monster was born. 

He remembers Bertie, bleeding out on the muddy ground and begging Tim to get out of No Man’s Land. To save himself. To stay safe.

There’s power in a dying prayer.

Tim had to be dragged away from the body. It was less than three hours later that he was leading a mad charge into enemy lines. Jonny had no doubt he was trying to die, but the bullets wouldn’t so much as touch him.

If he’d taken it as a sign and turned from his maddened path, Jonny knows, he would have been safe. One prayer isn’t enough to make either God or Monster. He would have remained unnaturally lucky, but he would have remained mortal.

But there’s power in the fears of the dying, and power in the taking of a life.

As Tim massacred the enemy, their fear and horror fed that little spark Bertie’s dying prayer had planted in his heart and twisted its power. As he murdered its way through enemy camps, the flame in his heart grew cold even as it raged.

And now, there’s a Monster on the battlefield and there’s nothing Jonny can do to save it.

He tries, of course. He tells stories in whispers around the campfires and knows that it’s not enough. 

He tells of a protector, of a soldier seeking vengeance for lost love. He tells of a lost soul yearning to be saved. He tries to bring the Monster back to humanity the only way he knows.

He might be The Storyteller, but he has only one tongue and the rumors have a hundred.

It’s time for a different approach.

He doesn’t have to  _ look _ for the Monster. To a God, it’s easy to follow the trail of destruction.

He finds the Monster not in the middle of a battlefield but huddled around a campfire in the middle of the woods. Perhaps he’s not so far gone as Jonny had feared.

“Stay back!” A shaky voice warns him.

“Take it easy, Tim. It’s just me.”

“Jonny?” It sounds almost hopeful. “No. No! Go away!”

“Relax, Tim, I ain’t come to kill you.”

“That’s not the problem, Jonny!”

He can see the change as the Monster takes over - teeth sharpening to knives and nails into claws. The Monster bears down on him, ready to kill him in so many ways.

But it hesitates as it senses his divinity, and that’s all the time Jonny needs.

“Let me tell you a story…”

Jonny’s always had a quick tongue. As the Monster stands spellbound, he weaves together the history. Bertie’s death and Tim’s rage and the spark of something More. He doesn’t mention the Monster Tim has become. He won’t let that be Tim’s Story.

Instead he speaks of passion and devotion. Remembrance for the dead and victory in battle. He tells of the soldiers speaking in hushed whispers, of stories told round the fire. He takes the fearful whispers and turns them to worship. 

This land needs a God to rule over Passion and Vengeance. To claim the domain of Love That Lasts Beyond Death. Jonny takes the threads of those unclaimed domains and weaves them into Tim’s Story, deft as any seamstress. He speaks of how it should be, and the universe obeys. The Monster retreats under the onslaught, claws shifting back to cracked and dirty nails.

When the story is done, Tim is kneeling on the ground in front of Jonny, shaking.

His new Godhood sits trembling in his chest and it makes Jonny sick to look at it.

"Jonny… thank you," Tim breathes.

His eyes are wrong. All coppery, and forged with the precision of a bullet. The first outward sign of his divinity.

"Don't thank me," Jonny warns him. "You'll hate me soon enough. If I was being kind, I would have just killed you."

"Why didn't you?"

Jonny shrugs.

"Dunno. Guess I've been bored. New Gods are always so interesting."

"Liar."

But Tim doesn't press it. Jonny likes that about him.

“Come on. We have work to do.”

“What work?” Tim asks, confused. 

“You’re not out of the woods yet,” Jonny warns him. “Ain’t much of a god without any followers, and the stories of the Monster are still spreading fast. We’ve got to counter that quick before it gets its claws back into you. I don’t much fancy the idea of a Monster with the divinity I’ve cursed you with.”

Tim nods. 

“So how do we do this?”

“We do what we do best. I tell stories. And you? I suppose you go out there and win the war.”

“I don’t care about winning,” Tim insisted.

“Then care about revenge. Or whatever. Just give one of the armies a reason to see you as a God of Victory instead of just a monster. My stories can only do so much.”

Tim gets a look in his eyes. 

“I could take on the Kaiser like this, couldn’t I?”

“You could take him on and win,” Jonny promises. “Now get out there and end the war.”

Tim smiles. 

“For Bertie.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [him whose howling drives men mad [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29170299) by [Kaladin_x_happiness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaladin_x_happiness/pseuds/Kaladin_x_happiness)




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